Driver In Fatal Park Slope Crash Attacked In Rikers, Report Says

PARK SLOPE, NY — The driver in a Park Slope crash that killed two young children was punched in the face by a prisoner while being held at Rikers Island, the New York Daily News reported.

Dorothy Bruns' lawyer, David Jacobs, told a judge Wednesday during a hearing to reduce her bail that she was recently attacked by a fellow inmate in the jail, according to the News. Despite the reported lunch room beat-down, the judge refused to drop Bruns' bail from $75,000 to $6,000.

Bruns, 44, of Staten Island, was indicted for manslaughter in May after prosecutors said she refused to heed doctors' warnings to stay off the road months before the crash that killed Abigail Blumenstein, 4, and Joshua Lew, 1.

On March 5, Bruns was stopped at the red light at Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue when she lost control of her 2016 Volvo S60 and slammed into five pedestrians crossing, police said.

The crash also left the children's mothers, Ruthie Ann Blumenstein and Lauren Lew, in the hospital and a man with minor injuries, police said.

Blumenstein, a Tony-award winning actress whose stage name is Ruthie Ann Miles, was pregnant at the time and later lost her unborn daughter from her injuries.

Bruns had a history of seizures and had a medical episode while driving in Staten Island in January, prosecutors said. Doctors told her to not get behind the wheel the, but she kept driving.

The crash led to a push for new laws by local elected officials for new laws to crack down on reckless drivers and the city to redesign sections of Ninth Street to make it safer for pedestrians and bicycles.

Image: Leah Finnegan/Twitter, used with permission